Guide to best TV
buys hits the target

But there’s only one that really hits the target in recommending what are the best buys in today’s fast-moving world of TV technology.

That’s the Television Viewer’s Guide 2015 (and its companion publications for radio listeners and mobile phone users) which are ideal Christmas presents that last all year round.

Editor Clive Woodyear casts his expert eye over the latest models, including this year’s “must-have” curved screen sets, with prices ranging from Samsung’s 55-inch at £2,199 to Sony’s massive 75-inch mini-cinema at £6,999.

The 162-page TV handbook covers such basics as the pros and cons of receiving your favourite programmes - be it via aerial, satellite, cable or the internet - plus all you need to know about Freeview, Freesat, Sky and Virgin, transmitter frequencies and maps, archiving recordings to DVD and computer, as well as contact addresses and websites for a host of channels.

Further details of the guides, which costs £7.50 each including postage, can be obtained from: Television Viewer’s Guide, PO Box 888, Plymouth PL8 1YJ. Tel: 01752-872888, or via the website at www.radioguide.co.uk

While ever-evolving technology is the driving force in the future of TV, it can also unlock secrets from the past.

That was the case with DNA which established that the remains found in a Leicester car park in 2012 were those of King Richard III who ruled more than 500 years ago.

That discovery gave rise to the King Richard III Visitor Centre, a must-see attraction in the city centre, and forms the backdrop to this week’s celebration as the Plantagenet monarch is re-buried nearby in Leicester Cathedral.

C4 (which beat the BBC to cover this unique occasion) rounds off its week of special programmes tomorrow from 10am onwards with three hours’ live coverage of the burial, with highlights being shown later in an hour-long special at 8pm.

When Richard’s body was first discovered, one wag said that his teeth were in better condition than participants on The Jeremy Kyle Show.

This might be fact or fiction, but I can’t see it being mentioned in Drills, Dentures and Dentistry: An Oral History (BBC4, Monday) in which prize-winning writer and historian Prof Joanna Bourke, investigates how, over the past five centuries, dentistry has been transformed from a back-street horror show into a modern science . . . even if the needle is far worse than the filling or extraction.

In this one-off special, she uncovers how a trip to the barbers in Medieval England could mean much more than a haircut, and how the teeth of soldiers killed at Waterloo ended up in the mouths of London’s rich.

If all this talk of teeth makes you think of food, don’t miss the continuing story of fast-food giant KFC in The Billion Dollar Chicken Show (BBC1, tonight), while over on BBC4 its the final course for In and Out Of The Kitchen with comedian Miles Jupp as a fussy food writer and chef.